Tuesday, March 31, 2009

I am back --- with a whimper

8-6 has got boring, although I am still in research, our whole group has had a recent focus/image makeover, making us almost completely service- rendering bitches for our clients (internal and external).

I don't like the projects I am supposed to work in 09-10.

With oil and the economy in free-fall our lofty bonuses (announced Dec08 for 09) are going to be severely trimmed.

I am feeling immensely strait-jacketed in terms of my career road-map.

Sum total of this bullet-based rant: I WANT AN MBA, again.

So after being out of the game for just about a quarter, I am back, back to play my part in that indy-500 of rat races aka Mba-admissions (drummrolls please) and that too at an unprecedented time.

My mood is sour and am feeling especially bitchy, so lets continue on the path of dourness and take a sneak peek into the current economic scene from an mba aspirant's perspective:

I-banking : Sell side finance to start with (sell side is for the dummies btw), where you are essentially a middleman (akin to a pimp, pimping for money in expensive $2200 black suits and gelled hair, instead of the bing and glean that your average pimp puts on) putting together exotic products for your clients and often mixing in super-toxic little understood instruments into those product pools. But hey you still make decent dough, well you used to, if I was graduating today from a B-school I wouldnt touch an I-bank with a barge pole.

REITS (Real estate): I said I wouldn't touch I-banks with a barge pole if was graduating today, in that case I need to make a will forbidding my offsprings to use the phrase REITs in any source or form ever. A few charts for the pain that has now been re-christened Real Estate investment:

What the first chart basically shows is the massive debt maturities that most REITs are now facing through to 2011. The problem is that REITs need to get financing/refinancing or some structural revolving credit line with their existing as well as new creditors to deal with these. Now those into Real estate will know that earlier this month Simon property group, perhaps the biggest player in this space (also the one with the best credit ratings on moodys and S&P), announced it was raising $500 million in bonds to take care of its debt at an astounding 10.15%!!! Pain anyone.

Now that my finance options are out of the way and the post is lit up in red, I'll retreat into my corner and sulk some more.

edit: I finished some catch up reading on mba related stuff and realized that there seems to be a shift in career focus towards clean energy, biofuels and stuff like that at most major B-schools. That is pretty surprising primarily because if you are rejecting Wall street based on your risk-averseness, then moving towards clean energy is almost surely suicidal. It is a sector that survives solely on subsidies and realistically has little chance to be a major/significant player anytime soon. The name though sounds chic and cool "Clean tech".

About Me

OMG stands for Oh My God. Its origin can be traced back to the time when, after watching the whole of American Idols season 2, I realized that Clay Aiken was actually not a girl but a boy. The very first historical documented use of OMG is "OMG-Clay-Aiken".
This blog would be a chronicle for a(n) MBA admit (class of '12), but would avoid the usual cliches (read gmat prep, essay prep, interview prep etc etc). Although it would hopefully be, more informative and more entertaining than your usual mba-next-door-blog.
Current profession: Research scientist in the oil and gas space.
Desired profession: Professional Poker player.
More realistic desired profession: Energy and commodities consulting/Sales and trading.